Cheapskate Wisdom … About Warehouse Stores

“I’m always confused when people rave about how much they ‘save’ at warehouse club stores. In my experience, I can’t get out of Costco or Wal-Mart for under $200. You want to talk savings? Try going in without your wallet.”

Quote from a “My Family’s No-Buy Experiment,” a Reader’s Digest story that came out a while back, in which a family tries to go a month without spending a dime. The family winds up saving more than $2,000 during the experiment, largely from using what they already owned. Instead of spending money, they got creative. Dad David Hochman explains:

We started riding our bikes to save gas. Sebastian’s finger paintings were recycled as gift wrap for the homemade presents we gave my dad on his birthday. We figured out the perfect time to show up at our farmers’ market for giveaways. Ruth turned stale bread into French toast and staler bread into bread crumbs. Sebastian and I had a perfectly wonderful free lunch one day at the local Hare Krishna temple.